solved "Unknown artist"/"Unknown album" even though files have tags. Missing tags also keep changing

[superpangolin]

Running files off a Samsung-brand micro SD on a Samsung Galaxy S9.

Even though all of my files have complete tags as far as I can see on Android/Windows Explorer, I have files appearing under "Unknown Artist", with other tags such as album or artwork also frequently missing. Sometimes even the track title is missing. The number of tracks missing info has fluctuated between 41, and 131 (where it tends to sit). It varies so much because it seems like everything I do to try fix it jumbles around the files some more (ie. some of the tracks that were appearing there before aren't anymore, and new ones have taken their place).

Here's what I've tried so far...

• Editing the tags en-masse in iTunes and re-copying the files over
• Simple Rescan (multiple times)
• Full Rescan (multiple times)
• Uninstall/Reinstall

I've attached images of one album. Here you can see the missing tags in Folder view in Poweramp, along with the fully-tagged files in Windows Explorer.

EDIT: should also mention I've tried several players before Poweramp and haven't encountered issues this severely with any files yet. Worst I had was some missing album artwork.

Edited February 4, 2020 by superpangolin
solved tag

[andrewilley]

Can you post a few of the files which mis-read so Max can take a look at them? Also, could you try editing the tags in something a bit less Appley than iTunes - perhaps TagScanner?

Andre

[maxmp]

There will be always files in the wild with the tags not readable by Poweramp and files with the tags not readable by other players.

Poweramp can process a lot more broken/non standard tags vs e.g. stock Android scanner.

 The best way to add support for more edge cases - is sharing the problematic file for testing.

Thanks!

[superpangolin]

Thanks for taking the time to look into it. I've uploaded one of the files above to Mediafire, along with a couple others from different problematic folders just in case:

**broken link**

**broken link**

**broken link**

I tried a couple other old players I dropped along the way getting to Poweramp, and like I remembered they didn't seem to have any issues finding artist/album tag - none were listed under "unknown". But I did notice some of the problematic files were still missing album art with those players.

I looked into TagScanner though and may have found the problem? The files in question are appearing with doubled-up tags somehow. It'll take a while to fix them and I need to go to work, but I'll get back you with how that goes later.

[andrewilley]

Ah, I bet you have your actual data saved in only one of the tag formats (most likely ID3v2) but there is also an existing (and empty) other tag (most likely ID3v1). PA must be reading the empty one and not looking any further.

Andre

[6b6561]

I checked one of the files with various tag tools under linux, most of them showed the tags ok.

• eyeD3 failed to display any tags at all.
• id3v2 showed that most of the tags are twice in the file.

What I find strange is that no other tool reading raw tags showed the duplicates.

$ id3v2 -l "01 Invisible Colony.mp3"
id3v2 tag info for 01 Invisible Colony.mp3:
TIT2 (Title/songname/content description): Invisible Colony
TPE1 (Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s)): Strike Anywhere
TALB (Album/Movie/Show title): Iron Front
TRCK (Track number/Position in set): 1/13
TPOS (Part of a set): 1/1
TYER (Year): 2009
TCON (Content type): Melodic Hardcore (255)
TENC (Encoded by): iTunes 9.0.2
COMM (Comments): ()[eng]:  0000388A 000031F9 000117E8 0000D181 00001A87 00001A87 00008CDB 00008BC9 0000881F 000063E5
COMM (Comments): ()[eng]:  00000000 00000210 00000834 000000000034BABC 00000000 0029B8C6 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
UFID (Unique file identifier): http://www.cddb.com/id3/taginfo1.html, 54 bytes
APIC (Attached picture): ()[, 0]: PNG, 179733 bytes
COMM (Comments): ()[eng]: 1
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
TPUB (Publisher): B9R
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
COMM (Comments): (iTunes_CDDB_IDs)[eng]: 13+6F4E94EEF25EAAE1384A6F335A0D009A+13794664
TPOS (Part of a set): 1/1
TRCK (Track number/Position in set): 1/13
TIT2 (Title/songname/content description): Invisible Colony
TYER (Year): 2009
APIC (Attached picture): ()[, 0]: image/jpeg, 227852 bytes
TALB (Album/Movie/Show title): Iron Front
TPE1 (Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s)): Strike Anywhere
TPE2 (Band/orchestra/accompaniment): Strike Anywhere
TCON (Content type): Melodic Hardcore (255)
01 Invisible Colony.mp3: No ID3v1 tag
$

 

[andrewilley]

Very strange. Hopefully @maxmp will be able to devise a work-around for a future release though. There are so many weird and not-so-wonderful variations on the 'standard' out there in the wild that they often need to be trapped and tamed one by one.

Andre

[tonyb]

Is there a .cue file in the same directory? I had the same problem. Turns out the .cue file defined the track names (albeit wrongly) but there was no band nor album definition in the .cue file. I removed the .cue and deleted the album from my phone, then copied the album over again without the .cue file. Full rescan and bingo, job done.

Just in case it's useful, I replied with the same method to this problem as well: 

 

[superpangolin]

Ok, so I worked through all the files with missing/duplicated tags in TagScanner on my desktop and re-copied them over. The number appearing under "Unknown album" by "Unknown artist" has dropped to 41 tracks and "Unknown genre" has dropped from around 140 tracks to 94. Some files that only had 1 or 2 missing tags (ie. some were missing "Album Artist")  have now lost even more tags.

Things are still a mess, basically. And I guess TagScanner won't let me check the tags on my phone directly, but copying files back again over to my PC showed the tags were all still intact, so they should probably be copying over with no issue.

The example album I've been using, Boxer, seemed kinda fixed... for a long while the TRACK TITLES were all empty though, even after Rescan/Full Rescan and an uninstall & reinstall. But I booted the app back up when I woke up, and with its initial scan it seemed to fix that issue itself. So, I guess that's one album totally fixed somehow. (You can also see the other issue I'm having with Poweramp in the screenshot though - the wrong track appearing as now playing on the bottom. It seems to take the tags from the track with the corresponding position in the general "All songs" list.)

The album with the file 6b6561 checked out, Iron Front, is no longer missing artist/album tags... but is now split into two albums for some reason.

4 hours ago, tonyb said:

Is there a .cue file in the same directory? I had the same problem. Turns out the .cue file defined the track names (albeit wrongly) but there was no band nor album definition in the .cue file. I removed the .cue and deleted the album from my phone, then copied the album over again without the .cue file. Full rescan and bingo, job done.

Just in case it's useful, I replied with the same method to this problem as well

Funny enough I came across this exact topic while trying to troubleshoot, but I couldn't see any .cue files (with Show Hidden Items checked in Explorer)

[superpangolin]

Double post, but I've been checking through and comparing the details of tracks in TagScanner to see if I can find any discrepancies. The only differences I can see come under the fields COMMENT ITUNES_CDDB_IDS and UNIQUEFIELD.

In most cases I can't see any correlation between COMMENT ITUNES_CDDB_IDS tags and any issues. I don't know what it represents but I'm assuming it's unimportant?

But that album I posted above that was split in two, "Iron Front" by Strike Anywhere, was interesting - the only difference I could see between the 5 tracks grouped w/ artwork and the 8 tracks grouped w/out artwork, was that the 5 tracks have a UNIQUEFIELD tag (containing links, eg.http://www.cddb.com/id3/taginfo1.html|3CD3N39Q192715711U23851D53EDFE7AB36784B76FB44A4FDE7CCP8) but the 8 don't. Otherwise there was no differences - again, not sure if this tag has any importance or not.

But yeah back to work, so I can't try anything out for a while. Are there any more advanced tag viewing/editing programs than TagScanner that are recommended, to see if I can fix this from my end in the meantime?

[Davor]

I have the exact same problem as the OP. I'd just like to add that I was already using the newest build of Poweramp previously and everything was fine... but this problem appeared after I updated to Pie and did a factory reset. After fresh install of Poweramp, things are a mess.

My phone is Xiaomi Mi A1.

[superpangolin]

Well I'm totally at a loss for how to fix this my end. I've had to start looking around for a replacement app to use in the meantime until this is fixed. 😥

It's disappointing because Poweramp has basically proven to be the best option in most regards, it at least checks all my boxes... it's just seems to be the only player (out of the 15 apps I've tried) that has issues reading these tags, no others have created any "unknown" directories for any categories.

[andrewilley]

8 hours ago, superpangolin said:

Well I'm totally at a loss for how to fix this my end.

I've checked the files you uploaded and yes, there is definitely something odd about the tags. Removing those semicolon double-ups in TagScanner and re-saving the file (thus making cleaner standardised tags) makes the files work in PA. Not an easy one to set up a batch edit though.

I suspect the comment that was made about some of the files importing just the title tag may be a red-herring, as the title will be scraped from the filename (minus any track numbering) in the absence of finding any readable tags.

I'm afraid we'll just have to wait for @maxmp to take a look at your uploaded sample files though, and work out what iTunes is mangling this time and hopefully create a workaround.

Andre

[Davor]

35 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

and work out what iTunes is mangling this time and hopefully create a workaround.

Andre

I don't think it has anything to do with iTunes though. I've never used it, just normal copy paste to the phone. And everything worked fine before I updated to Android Pie and did a Factory reset.

[andrewilley]

Just now, Davor said:

I don't think it has anything to do with iTunes though. I've never used it, just normal copy paste to the phone. And everything worked fine before I updated to Android Pie and did a Factory reset.

Your issue appears to be different then, could you provide some more details?

Andre

[Davor]

3 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

Your issue appears to be different then, could you provide some more details?

Andre

Of course. Copy pasting here from another post:

"So I have the same problem.

I recently updated to Android Pie and did a factory reset. after reinstalling Poweramp (I previously also used the newest version), part of my library shows as Unknown artist - Unknown title - Unknown album. Funny thing is, the tags themselves are fine - when I go "Check Info/Tags", everything displays properly.

My phone is Xiaomi Mi A1, playing music from SD card.

Also on some songs only the Artist is missing and the rest of the info is displayed ok - but again, checking the tags, the Artist tag itself is correct.

Songs affected are .flac and mp3."

I used Mediamonkey for all my tags, they are certainly correct on my end so it's kinda baffling why some songs are problematic considering everything looks ok in the file itself and in any other program..

Do let me know if I can provide any other info/ files

[andrewilley]

1 hour ago, Davor said:

My phone is Xiaomi Mi A1, playing music from SD card.

I wonder if this is related to https://forum.powerampapp.com/topic/16158-poweramp-cant-scan-sd-card-tags which could imply an issue with Xiaomi phones and SD Cards. Do these problem files scan OK if you put them into internal device memory? If not, and you think that there are specific files are causing the problem, please could you upload a few test samples which don't read correctly? (using Dropbox, mediafire, etc).

Andre

[superpangolin]

@andrewilley I should probably have been more clear. I did use TagScanner to try and fix the tags once I found what they all were - I tried removing the semicoloned doubles, and even tried clearing the fields and re-entering the info.

The 3 files I linked above were actually mostly fixed. 01_We_Dance_On_The_Ruins_Of_The_Stup.mp3 and 01_Invisible_Colony.mp3 are still both missing Album Artist and Artwork fields in Poweramp. As I posted above with the 2 screenshots, that Strike Anywhere album (Iron Front) splits in two now instead of those files appearing under "Unknown album". But I guess you'd not be able to witness that without having the whole albums files. My bad there. Possibly because those files aren't showing any Album Artist whereas the others are, so it's splitting that album? 01_Fake_Empire.mp3 and that whole album seem to be tagged fine now after TagScanner.

The problem I'm having is that not ALL of the files were fixed by this method of using TagScanner, some even got worse and lost more tag info in Poweramp. Here's a file that was broken before TagScanner treatment and is still bust in Poweramp, failing to show Album, Album Artist, Genre and Artwork. Maybe this one will be of more help - https://www.sendspace.com/file/evvj3n

(Gheez, we're really exposing some of my angsty teen years guilty pleasure music from a decade ago with all these old files)

 

[andrewilley]

20 minutes ago, superpangolin said:

(Gheez, we're really exposing some of my angsty teen years guilty pleasure music from a decade ago with all these old files)

LOL. I've long since given up actually trying to listen to sample test files that people send.

Andre

[Davor]

5 hours ago, andrewilley said:

I wonder if this is related to https://forum.powerampapp.com/topic/16158-Poweramp-cant-scan-sd-card-tags which could imply an issue with Xiaomi phones and SD Cards. Do these problem files scan OK if you put them into internal device memory? If not, and you think that there are specific files are causing the problem, please could you upload a few test samples which don't read correctly? (using Dropbox, mediafire, etc).

Andre

I tried copying some of the affected files to internal memory and they are getting read properly from there.

Got any idea what the problem is? And why is the majority of my library fine, but some songs aren't? The tags themselves still look fine when checking Info...

[andrewilley]

Mediafire is blocking that sample download by the way.

Andre

[superpangolin]

3 hours ago, andrewilley said:

Mediafire is blocking that sample download by the way.

Andre

Thanks, noticed it seems to be blocking the old links too now. Updated the last one (https://www.sendspace.com/file/evvj3n)

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, superpangolin said:

Thanks, noticed it seems to be blocking the old links too now. Updated the last one (https://www.sendspace.com/file/evvj3n)

Thanks. @maxmp could you take a look at these files please? Seem to be slightly different issues with the last one to the previous ones, but tags are not reading reliably on any of them.

Andre

[6b6561]

I had a stab at the (https://www.sendspace.com/file/evvj3n) and the verdict is that there is something broken in the meta data of the file. Conclusion after quite some messing around with the file is that:

• eyeD3 reads only the title, year, track and disc tags, basically the same info that PA is able to read from the file.
• id3v2 reads all the tags in the file.
• mid3v2 reads all tags but the UFID tag.

What's interesting is that after adding and removing a TPE3 header to the file with id3v2 all the tags becomes readable in all tools including PA, so there is something garbled in the id3 header which is fixed by modifying a tag in the file. mid3v2 is also able to read the UFID tag after this operation.

 

 

 

[maxmp]

@superpangolin thanks for the files. These claim id3 v2.3.0 support in header, but use 3-char tags from v2.2.0, some tags use v.2.3.0, some v.2.2.0 headers. This is completely broken and I wonder how you get such results from iTunes (my iTunes can't even read tags from these files). I added limited support for such broken tags in next Poweramp build, though, Album Art won't be read properly anyway.